Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

The Very Big Lie, eyeing passers-by,
waiting to be heard, depressed at lack of interest,
hired a local concert hall.

‘Justice will prevail’, murmured an ageing cliché
in the front row as the curious thumbed through
blank pages of a programme, while the
Minister for Writs and Obfuscation brought along his
extremely private secretary to keep a watch
on punctuation, spelling and hyperbole,
and the mullah and the clergyman swapped brief
but quite important vows. At which point:

‘Ladies and gentlemen’, announced the emcee,
shallow-breathed and orange-flushed, ‘we regret most deeply
there will be no performance tonight, due to the unexpected
inconvenience of The Very Big Lie being dead,
spotted dangling from the dressing-room door at
the end of a falsehood. All monies will be refunded - honestly’.

The concert hall emptied tortoise-slow, rumours rustling
like leaves, as the Minister and his extremely private secretary
headed for an early night of fine champagne and punctuation,
while a tabloid reporter recorded on his mobile phone:
‘They found a note. Death by inconsistency’.

The Very Big Lie was laid to rest, a landfill site,
attended by a small white lie who arrived with
sermons, prayer books and a bunch of lilies
to sanctify the earthworms.

Three days later the extremely private secretary,
strapped into her trainers, sweating off all
thoughts of fine champagne and absent wives,
swore she saw, quietly rising through the dry ice
of the early morning, a solitary conscience, 
garlanded with penitence and elements of truth.